ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
THE STATUS OF TOPOGRAPHIC MAPPING IN THE WORLD
A UNGGIM - ISPRS PROJECT 2012 – 2014
G. Konecny*, U. Breitkopf*, A. Radtke*, K. Lee**
* Institute of Photogrammetry and GeoInformation, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany
** Eastview Geospatial, Minneapolis, MN, USA
KEY WORDS: status of topographic mapping, map data coverage, UNGGIM - ISPRS Project,
map updating
ABSTRACT
In December 2011 UNGGIM initiated a cooperative project with ISPRS to resume the former UN
Secretariat studies on the status of topographic mapping in the world conducted between 1968 and
1986. After the design of a questionnaire with 27 questions, the UNGGIM Secretariat sent the
questionnaires to the UN member states. 113 replies were received from the 193 member states and
other regions the 51 non-member countries and territories. Regarding the global data coverage and
age the UN questionnaire survey was supplemented by data from the Eastview database. For each
of the 27 questions an interactive viewer was programmed permitting the analysis of the results.
The authoritative data coverage at the various scale ranges has greatly increased between 1986 and
2012. Now a 30% 1:25 000 map data coverage and a 75% 1:50 000 map data coverage has been
completed. Nevertheless there is still an updating problem as date for some countries are 10 to 30
years old. Private Industry with Google, Microsoft and Navigation system providers has undertaken
huge efforts to supplement authoritative mapping. For critical areas on the globe MGCP committed
to military mapping at 1:50 000. ISPRS has decided to make such surveys a sustainable issue by
establishing a working group, which also will enlarge its scope toward global land cover mapping.
1
ORIGINS OF THE PROJECT
In 1986 the Department of Technical Cooperation for Development of the United
Nations Secretariat has completed the last survey on the “Status of World
Topographic and Cadastral Mapping”. The results of the survey were published by
the United Nations, New York 1990 in World Cartography, Vol. XIX. The text was
submitted by the UN Secretariat as document E/CONF 78/BP7 in 1986 prepared by
A.J. Brandenberger and S.K. Ghosh of the Faculty of Forestry and Geodesy at Laval
University, Quebec, Canada. It referred to previous surveys submitted by the
Department of Technical Cooperation for Development of the United Nations
Secretariat in 1968 published in World Cartography XIV and in 1974 and 1980
published in World Cartography XVII.
The paper published in World Cartography XIX in 1990 summarized the progress
made in topographic mapping across the globe between 1968 and 1980 in 4 scale
categories:
range I;
scales between 1:1000 and 1: 31 680
range II; scales between 1:40 000 and 1:75 000
range III; scales between 1:100 000 and 1:126 720
range IV; scales between 1:140 000 and 1:253 440
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
These ranges represent the more recently standardized scales:
range I;
range II;
range III;
range IV;
scale 1:25 000
scale 1:50 000
scale 1:100 000
scale 1:250 000
While scale in the age of digital cartography has changed the meaning, the scale
ranges nevertheless maintain their significance with respect to the resolution of
mappable details.
The 1986 survey covered the following number of countries or territories:
Africa
North America
South America
Europe
Asia
USSR
Oceania
53 countries
24 countries
12 countries
39 countries
40 countries
1 country
11 countries
4 territories
13 territories
3 territories
4 territories
3 territories
0 territories
17 territories
Antarctica was not included in the survey.
Source of the data obtained by the surveys were completed questionnaires, sent by
the UN Secretariat to the UN member countries, plus additional surveys made
directly by Laval University for UN member countries not having answered the
questionnaires, for non-UN member countries and for territories under foreign
administration. The result of the survey was for each region and for the different scale
ranges:
Africa
North
America
South
America
Europe
Asia
USSR
Oceania
range I
2.3%
41.3%
range II
29.7%
68.2%
range III
20.6%
8.0%
range IV
86.8%
92.8%
9.7%
29.0%
44.2%
50.4%
92.5%
16.0%
>5%
13.3%
93.8%
62.7%
>60%
15.6%
81.3%
65.4%
100%
36.1%
95.7%
92.0%
100%
99.8%
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
The areas covered by the survey were:
range I
75.8%
90.7%
100%
98.0%
87.8%
100%
94.1%
Africa
North America
South America
Europe
Asia
USSR
Oceania
range II
100%
100%
100%
90.2%
90.9%
100%
94.5%
range III
100%
100%
100%
97.25%
87.6%
100%
94.3%
range IV
100%
99.5%
100%
96.7%
90.2%
100%
99.9%
World summary:
area of survey 1986
1986 map coverage
1980 map coverage
1974 map coverage
1968 map coverage
range I
90.1%
17.9%
13.3%
11.6%
7.7%
range II
97.4%
49.3%
42.2%
35.0%
23.4%
range III
97.0%
46.4%
42.2%
40.5%
38.2%
range IV
97.75%
87.5%
80.0%
80.5%
81.0%
Since the last survey in 1986 considerable progress has been made in data coverage:
2012 map coverage
range I
33,5%
range II
81.4%
Map coverage
100,0%
+0,49%
90,0%
80,0%
70,0%
81,0%
80,5%
80,0%
85,6%
40,0%
30,0%
20,0%
10,0%
81,4%
+1,28%
67,5%
+0,87%
+1,07%48,1%
+0,28%42,2%
+0,38%40,5%
+0,51%45,0%
38,2%
+1,20%42,2%
35,0%
+1,93%
23,4%
+0,51%
+0,28%
+0,65%
16,1%
13,3%
7,7% 11,6%
0,0%
1968
1974
1980
1986
range IV
98.4%
98,4%
+1,02%
60,0%
50,0%
range III
67.5%
Range I
(≈1:25,000 or
greater)
Range II
(≈1:50,000)
Range III
(≈1:100,000)
+0,67%
1992
1998
2004
33,5%
Range IV
(≈1:250,000)
2010 Year
Chart 1: Percentages of total world area covered in each scale category,
1968-1974-1980-1986-2012
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Area
(106 km²)
30
25
20
15
10
7
Africa
North America
South America
Europe
Asia
IV…
III…
II…
I…
IV…
III…
II…
I…
IV…
III…
II…
I…
IV…
III…
II…
I…
IV…
III…
II…
I…
IV…
III…
II…
0
I…
5
Australia and
Oceania
Chart 2: Area covered by topographic mapping on four scale ranges, by geographical region, 2012
ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
While the surveys presented in 1986 did not concentrate on map revision on a global
basis, they nevertheless derived an update rate for the four scale ranges:
update rate 1986
range I
3.2%
range II
1.8%
range III
2.7%
range IV
3.6%
This points to the fact, that in 1986 the maps at the scale relevant to national planning
operations 1:50 000 were hopelessly out of date.
range I
range II
range III
range IV
update rate 2012
45,0
40,0
35,0
30,0
25,0
20,0
15,0
10,0
5,0
0,0
Global
Africa
Asia
Europe
North
America
South
America
22,8
Australia
and
Oceania
22,4
Range I
22,4
24,2
13,8
35,4
9,8
Range II
26,3
35,1
27,2
16,5
17,1
26,3
34,7
Range III
31,2
36,3
35,3
29,0
21,1
29,2
30,1
Range IV
37,0
43,7
38,0
30,4
21,8
44,0
31,5
Chart 3: Average map age in years counting from 2012
Other aspects of the surveys conducted in 1980 were directed toward the existence of
geodetic networks and their density. In 1980 there existed 3.67M horizontal and
3.16M vertical control monuments on the globe, but again their density varied from
2.66km2 per horizontal control monument and 3.61km2 per vertical control
monument in Europe to 232km2 in Africa with an average of 42.5km2 per horizontal
control monument to 46.4km2 per vertical control monument.
Today the GNSS technology makes control point densities irrelevant, except for the
case, when old map data need to be referenced to a global datum.
In 1980 the national mapping agencies possessed 12 120 theodolites, 5790 precise
leveling instruments and 1914 EDM devices, 162 airplanes for aerial photography,
267 aerial survey cameras and 3120 photogrammetric stereo plotting instruments.
Disregarded in that survey are instruments owned by companies mapping for
governments under contract.
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Again, the availability of geodetic instrumentation is not of essence to judge progress
any more.
The attempts of 1980 to determine the existing manpower of the national mapping
agencies for each region were based on few countries only (e.g. Algeria and Nigeria
for Africa, the USGS in the USA, the Surveys and Mapping Branch in Canada, the
IGN France in Europe). These data were used to extrapolate the requirements in other
countries with the attempt to develop a budget of global expenditures, yielding a
global sum of US$ 868 million, at that time 0.010% of the gross national product,
while the global surveying and mapping activities at that time were estimated to be
between 8 to 9 billion US$ per year. A program for increasing the expenditures to
0.02% of the GNP was recommended in the report to meet the need for lacking
mapping coverage and lacking map updates.
The financing of geospatial information is a very complex issue. To track progress
these tasks should now be transferred to another UNGGIM Working Group.
The rather inaccurate and inconclusive results of 1986 may have discouraged the UN
Secretariat in continuing the past surveys due to lack of a budget for this purpose.
2
THE UNGGIM-ISPRS PROJECT
The United Nations Regional Cartographic Conferences (UNRCC) for the Americas
and for Asia and the Pacific nevertheless continued to recommend to the Secretariat
to continue the studies on the global status of mapping. One of these resolutions of
the UNRRCC for the Americas in 2009 gave the mandate to the Secretariat for a new
survey.
This happened at the time, when UNGGIM (United Nations Global Geospatial
Information Management) was created as a new structure.
ISPRS approached the director of UNGGIM in 2011 to start a joint project on the
survey of the status of topographic geospatial information, because:
• the issue is of global interest
• new technologies, such as GNSS (GPS, GLONASS), digital aerial mapping,
high resolution satellites for mapping, digital photogrammetry and GIS have
taken over as new mapping methodologies
• large private organizations such as the navigation industry (Here, Tomtom),
Google Earth and Microsoft Bingmaps have entered the mapping effort, which
was previously the domain of the national mapping agencies.
The project was approved in December 2011 by Dr. Paul Cheung, director of
UNGGIM at that time, who nominated Dr. Amor Laaribi as UNGGIM contact, and
by Chen Jun, President of ISPRS, who nominated Prof. Gottfried Konecny of Leibniz
University Hannover as ISPRS contact.
In January 2012 a questionnaire to the UN member states was designed, mutually
discussed, translated to French, Russian and Spanish and mailed to the contacts of the
UNGGIM Secretariat in the UN member states. Ms. Vilma Frani of the UNGGIM
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Secretariat sent the replies to Leibniz University Hannover, where they were placed
in a database designed by Uwe Breitkopf for further analysis.
3
THE QUESTIONNAIRE
The jointly designed questionnaire consists of five parts including 27 Questions:
• PART A: Background Information
• PART B: National Topographic Mapping Coverage
• PART C: National Imagery Acquisition
• PART D: National Surveying and Cadastral Coverage
• PART E: Organization
See Appendix I for the original Questionnaire.
Until March 13, 2015 altogether 113 responses have been received from 193 UN
member states. In addition, there are 51 non-UN member countries and territories,
which are also covered by map data. These map data for 244 UN member states and
regions were generated in UN member states, but these have in general no direct
responsibility for mapping these territories.
Figure 1 shows the 113 UN Member States, which have answered the UNGGIMISPRS questionnaire.
Figure 1: 113 countries have replied the Questionnaire until February 2015
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
4
CONTENT OF THE DATABASE
While not all of the 27 questions need to be answered globally, this is, however,
important for questions 1 and 2, since they characterize the global data coverage at
the different scale ranges and their age of the data. To assess the global status the
Eastview database is a fundamental component to answer these questions. Dr. Kent
Lee, CEO of Eastview has kindly agreed to make the missing data available from
their database.
Regarding question 1 Figure 2 to Figure 5 show the global coverage in the scale
ranges 1:25 000 or greater, 1:50 000, 1:100 000 and 1:250 000.
Figure 2: Map coverage at scale 1:25 000 or greater
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 3: Map coverage at scale 1:50 000
Figure 4: Map coverage at scale 1:100 000
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
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Figure 5: Map coverage at scale 1:250 000
Chart 1 and Figure 6 to Figure 9 give the source of the metadata information for
Figure 2 to Figure 5. This answers question 1.
Chart 4: Data source for coverage per scale category
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
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Figure 6: Source of meta information for map coverage in range I - 1:25 000
Figure 7: Source of meta information for map coverage in range II - 1:50 000
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
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Figure 8: Source of meta information for map coverage in range III - 1:100 000
Figure 9: Source of meta information for map coverage in range IV - 1:250 000
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 6 to Figure 9 shows the equivalent data to Figure 2 to Figure 5 for the year
1986, depicting the huge progress made through technology from 1986 to 2012. Also
Figure 14 highlights the change in map coverage between 1986 and 2012.
Figure 10: Map coverage 1986 at scale 1:25 000 or greater
Figure 11: Map coverage 1986 at scale 1:50 000
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 12: Map coverage 1986 at scale 1:100 000
Figure 13: Map coverage 1986 at scale 1:250 000
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 14: Change in map coverage between 1986 and 2012 for range II - 1:50 000
This answers question 2 at least in part.
The other 25 questions characterize the general global infrastructure for provision of
map data. Figure 10 to Figure 30 give answers to most of the questions 3 to 27.
Figure 15: Question 3. Restricted access or limited circulation to
maps and/or data
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 16: Question 4. Maps and/or digital data sold to the public or data free of
charge
Figure 17: Question 5. Cycle of map and data revision by complete mapping,
i.e. revision of a national series or mapping of changed features
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
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Figure 18: Question 6. Methods of national data revision and map updating
Figure 19: Question 6. Use of satellite imagery for national data revision and map
updating
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 20: Question 6. Use of crowd sourcing for national data revision and map
updating
Figure 21: Question 7. Mapping and map updating done in-house
or by outsourcing
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 22: Question 8: National aerial photography acquisition program
Figure 23: Question 8. Using digital and/or analogue photogrammetry
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
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Figure 24: Question 9: National satellite imagery acquisition program
Figure 25: Question 10. Acquiring and/or using other imagery types (such as
LiDAR, RADAR, etc.)
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 26: Question 12. Production of orthophotos and orthophotomaps
Figure 27: Question 14. Production or intention to produce, 3D urban and rural
landscape models and/or product visualization
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 28: Question 16. National coverage of cadastral maps and/or data available
Figure 29: Question 16. National Mapping Agency (NMA) responsible for
surveying and/or land titles and cadastre
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Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 30: Question 18. Cadastral maps based on geodetic control
Figure 31: Question 19. Property boundaries monumented in the field
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 32: Question 20. Update transaction of property maps and/or data
Figure 33: Question 22. National topographic mapping, imagery acquisition,
surveying and cadastral programs funded by your national Government
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 34: Question 23. Annual mapping budget of the National Mapping
Organization converted to million US$ per square kilometre of the country area
M-US$
45,00
41,45
Africa (10 samples)
40,00
Asia (10 samples)
35,00
30,69
30,00
25,96
Europe (19 samples)
25,00
20,00
North America (5 samples)
15,35
15,00
South America (2 samples)
8,77
10,00
5,00
Australia and Oceania (1
sample)
3,74
1,35
Global (47 samples)
-
Chart 5: Question 23. Average annual budget 2012 per region converted to
million-US$
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 35: Question 24. Number of mapping staff in the organization
as hundreds of square kilometres of country area per person
Figure 36: Question 25. Regulatory or institutional arrangements mandating the
organization to fulfil its role as the lead mapping agency
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 37: Question 26. Delivery of different map and data products via web services
Figure 38: Question 27. Methods of archival for the national data sets
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 39: Question 27. Using servers/databases as method of archival
for the national data sets
5
MAPPING CONTRIBUTIONS BY PRIVATE INDUSTRY
As has been demonstrated, official and authoritative mapping by governments
provides a reliable geospatial infrastructure, which is used for many public and
private applications, but which is costly, difficult and slow to maintain. For that
reason private enterprises have succeeded to launch several initiatives to provide
faster update solutions in areas, which require fast update solutions. These are based
on different cost and accuracy models for specific applications, which require fast
updates. These applications do not replace official authoritative cartography, but they
supplement it, as all such efforts utilize official cartographic products as a base to
start their value added operations.
5.1 Google
Google´s prime aim is to provide a location based information system for uses of the
public. What the general user wants is quick orientation about how to locate a
specific object, such as a landmark, a store, a restaurant or a service provider and how
to drive to it.
Geometric accuracy within the context of the neighborhood topography is of lesser
importance than the addressability and the access by roads or pathways. In general,
business advertising provides for the revenue to establish and to maintain the system.
Google Inc. operates by different projects, of which the following are the most
important from the cartographic point of view.
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5.1.1 Google Earth
Existing orthophotography coverage with ground sample distances between 0.1 m
and 0.5m as well as high resolution satellite imagery overages with ground sample
distances (GSD) between 0.5 m to 2 m and beyond provide the geometric background
image information, which can be interpreted by the user with respect to the searched
objects, such as buildings, roads, vegetation, water surfaces. While ortho images have
a high geometric accuracy related to ground features commensurate with the GSD,
this is not so for building tops and tree tops. Geometric accuracy even deteriorates
more for high resolution satellite imagery, since most of these images have been
acquired with inclinations with respect to the vertical, unless stereo imaging
permitted the generation of ortho imagery. The coverage is global for all land areas.
Nevertheless, despite some of these shortcomings with respect to official
cartography, Google Earth can easily satisfy the geolocation demands for the uses
Google Earth has been designed for.
5.1.2 Google Maps
Google Maps is a product usually derived, wherever possible, from authoritative
cartography. It has been designed to supplement Google Earth with a cartographic
output containing place names, road names and building addresses. It serves the ideal
function of superimposing images with line graphics. Even though Google Maps may
be derived from authoritative cartography, the feature content is much less elaborate
and reduced to the intended geolocation function. The 3 models for creating Google
Maps are shown in Figure 40: a) relying on authoritative data in North America,
Europe, Australia as “Google Ground Truth” b) Map Maker outsourced, leaving the
initiative of mapping using Google Earth to other companies (Africa, Middle East,
India) c) “Video Rental” model offering Google Earth imagery to other countries for
mapping use (Russia, China).
Figure 40: Google Maps
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
5.1.3 Google Street Map
Google Street Map has been developed as a tool to image buildings and streets with
street furniture along urban roadways. This is done by vehicle based cameras, located
by GNSS signals. In some communities the imaging of building facades has met
resistance by some members of the population, which did not wish to show them to
the public on the web. Nevertheless Google has pursued street mapping for the sole
reason to update the Google Maps content as an internal operation.
In this manner Google Street Map has proved to be an effective tool to quickly update
the Google Maps content for buildings and roads. The update of these features can
generally be done much faster than by the regular update intervals for authoritative
mapping without a reporting system in operation and without a multitude of fast
survey options, rather than by a centralized mapping procedure. For coverage see
Figure 41.
Figure 41: Google Street Map Coverage
5.1.4 Google Ground Truth
In the attempt not only to update the map content, but also to maintain a high level of
geometric accuracy, the Google Ground Truth project has been launched for a
number of countries in North America, Europe, Australia and South Africa, in which
authoritative cartography has been merged with the results of high tech operations,
such as Google Street Map, see Figure 42.
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Figure 42: Google Ground Truth
As Google regards the progress of these projects as a confidential matter, it is not
possible to make a more detailed account of the progress made.
5.2 Microsoft Bingmaps
Microsoft considered Google to be their strongest competitor, while Bingmaps has
the same objectives as the Google efforts. Therefore care has been taken to achieve a
higher resolution and a more accurate geometry than Google Earth.
This was possible by limiting the area of interest to the continental USA and to
Western Europe, where there were no flight restrictions. Furthermore, the imagery
used for Bingmaps consisted solely of digital aerial imagery flown by the company
owned Vexcel Ultracam cameras.
The coverage of the countryside for the USA and for Western Europe was completed
at 30cm GSD, and the urban areas were imaged at 15cm GSD. Whether the originally
foreseen updates of every 3 years can be achieved as planned, is still an open issue.
See Figure 43 (a,b,c,d).
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ISPRS WG IV/2 Workshop “Global Geospatial Information and High Resolution Global Land Cover/Land Use
Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 43: a,b,c,d: Bingmaps
5.3 Yandex
Another approach has been undertaken by Yandex in the Russian Federation, which
was also applied in Turkey by the company Yandex.
Yandex has procured high resolution satellite imagery from Digital Globe for the
entire territory of the Russian Federation at 0.5m GSD and at 1m GSD. The objects
of interest were building blocks, single buildings, roads, creeks. They could be
identified and mapped from the images. The geocoding of the mapped information
was done by accuracy augmented GNSS code receivers with 2 to 3m accuracy on the
ground. In this way Yandex succeeded to generate digital maps for about 300 urban
conglomerations in Russia and Turkey.
Yandex, like international car navigation system suppliers, was also interested in car
traffic routing, providing real time traffic congestion options for the agglomeration of
Moscow.
5.4 HERE
When the Finish company Nokia bought Navteq, the global car navigation system
efforts were continued by the subsidiary HERE.
HERE makes car navigation systems based on their own maps for 196 countries of
the world, 116 countries of which have voice guided navigation and 44 countries of
which with live traffic services.
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Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Of interest are roads and points of interest. This also includes unidirectional
restrictions of traffic flows.
In Europe 15% of the map´s content is updated every year, modifying or adding 1.1M
km of roads, creating 700 000 new points of interest and adding 600 000 speed
cameras.
In the Russian Federation 800 000 km of roads change after 6 months, and so do 120
000 street names, 22 000 turn restrictions, 3400 one way streets, 38 000 speed limits
and 8700 directional street signs. See Figure 44:
Figure 44: HERE Global Coverage
5.5 TomTom
TomTom has road navigation coverage for 118 countries extending over North
America, Brazil, Argentina, Europe, the Russian Federation, India, Indonesia,
Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, West and South Africa. See Figure 45:
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Figure 45: Tomtom Global Coverage
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MAPPING BY MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS
Like it happened during the cold war period, when the US and the USSR military
organizations considered it their goal to conduct mapping operations in what they
considered to be crisis areas, this practice was recently revived by about 30 nations
from Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Republic of Korea and
South Africa, when they launched the Multinational Geospatial Co-Production
Program MGCP. The goal of this program is to generate up-to-date 1:50 000 digital
maps for potential crisis areas of the globe in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the West
Indies and the Pacific Ocean. Benefitting from this activity is the UN cartographic
section, which utilizes these maps to create information for crisis mitigation. See
Figure 46:
Figure 46: MGCP Mapping Coverage
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SUMMARY OF RESULTS
• 113 UN Member countries have responded to the 2012-2014 UNGGIM-ISPRS
Survey. It has been shown, that nearly all reporting countries have modernized
their facilities to adopt modern GNSS, digital imaging and GIS technology in
their operations, which are still handicapped by lack of funding and staff
shortages.
• While in 1986 the world was basically covered by 1:250 000 maps, progress in
technology has now made it possible to state that topographic mapping of the
globe at 1:50 000 scale, relevant to sustainable development, has been reached.
• There are still gaps in providing updated information in developing countries.
These need to be closed with a goal of no data to be older than 5 years.
• New technologies, such as those used by Google and by Yandex could help to
reach this goal in priority areas.
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FUTURE ACTIVITIES
• ISPRS has created Working group IV-2 to accompany the UNGGIM-ISPRS
project.
• This working group has successfully provided the needed discussion forum for
the task.
• It will be the future goal of this group to assure that the data collection and
analysis will be sustainable by cooperating with UNGGIM and UN-GEO.
• A near goal will be the expansion of the work to include global land cover
mapping as a task.
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REFERENCES
UN Secretariat document E/CONF78/BP7 1986, prepared by A. J. Brandenberger &
S.K. Ghosh, published in World Cartography XiX, 1990
UN Secretariat document E/CONF78/BP8 1986, prepared by G. Konecny, published
in World Cartography XIX, 1990
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UNRESOLVED ISSUES OF MAP UPDATING
Gottfried Konecny
Emeritus Professor, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany
konecny@ipi.uni-hannover.de
Commission IV, WG IV-2
KEY WORDS: topographic mapping, coverage, status, study, unresolved issues
1. The ISPRS-UNGGIM Study on the Status of Topographic Mapping in the
World
ISPRS Working Group IV/2 has undertaken a global survey on the Status of
Topographic Mapping in the World. Topographic Mapping is considered as the base
for other type of mapping.
The results of the study have been posted on the Internet in the UNGGIM Knowledge
Base: ggim.un.org/knowledgebase/KnowledgebaseCategory63.aspx.
ISPRS has also distributed a printed brochure of 64 pages. It is available on the
Internet for download under:
http://www.isprs.org/documents/reports/The_Status_of_Topographic_Mapping_in_the_World.pdf.
A shorter version was published in 2016 in the Zeitschrift für Vermmessungswesen
und Geoinformation ZFV (January 2016).
2. Results of the Study
1) The progress in global topographic mapping is scale dependent. The larger the
scale range, the more detail needs to be mapped, and the more costly the mapping
becomes. In 2012 the global land areas are covered to 33.5 % at the scale range
1:25 000, to 81.4 % at the scale range 1:50 000, to 67.5 % at the scale range 1:100
000 and to 98.4 % at the scale range 1:250 000.
2) Progress since the last UN Secretariat survey in 1986, that is within the last 26
years has been very good. The coverages for the 25 000 scale range were then
17.9 %, 49.3 % for 1:50 000, 46.4 % for 1:100 000, and 87.5% for 1:250 000. Chart
1 shows the development at these scale ranges since 1968.
3) Nevertheless the average age of maps in the world for 2012-2015 was 22.4 years
for the 1:25 000 range, 26.3 years for 1:50 000, 31.2 years for 1:100 000 and 37.0
years for 1:250 000. Chart 2 shows the ages of maps for the different continents with
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Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
the best values for Europe (13.8 years for 1:25 000 in Europe) and for South America
(9.8 years for the small mapped areas at 1:25 000). This is due to the fact, that the
conventional technologies used for authoritative mapping are still relatively slow.
Nevertheless, there has been an improvement since 1986, when the annual update
rate was 3.2% for 1:25 000 (equivalent to an age of 31 years), 1.8% (56 years) for
1:50 000, 2.7% (37 years) for 1:100 000 and 3.6% (28 years) for 1:250 000.
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4) These studies have all been done for authoritative maps produced by governmental
agencies, either by own production or by outsourcing. The possibilities to repeat the
mapping effort for a map update were dependent on governmental funding reflecting
demand and political decisions.
The important aspect of authoritative mapping has always been its reliability and its
accuracy of geolocation. While governmental mapping agencies have always
maintained their position as a civilian base data supplier to the user agencies, which
enhanced the map and data content for their own purposes despite of their relatively
slow mapping progress, the mapping efforts of the private sector have become
noticeable. These efforts are less concentrated on accuracy and completeness, but
they can diminish the time gap between map compilation and map completion.
5) Here especially high resolution satellite imaging and also progress in digital aerial
imaging gave the private sector a head start. Google Earth, Google Maps and
Bingmaps have been using this technology to derive geocoded image products very
rapidly (Google Earth) and to even derive a limited number of features (roads,
buildings) in vector form from the image products (Google Maps). Their feature
content could even be verified and enhanced by mobile van terrestrial imaging
(Google Street View, Cyclomedia).
Figure 1: Google Ground Truth areas (green) use authoritative data
as a base, the others use other means
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Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Figure 2: Google Street View is an efficient tool for updating map content
6) Further progress for limited features, such as roads and buildings has been
introduced by navigation system providers, such as TomTom and HERE, which
added traffic information to their transportation network data.
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Mapping”, April 21, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
7) Other interesting mapping efforts have been introduced by Yandex in Russia and
Turkey, deriving vector information from a combined use of high resolution satellite
imagery with ground based GNSS feature localization.
8) These methodological improvements have not only given a significant push to
geoinformation technology per se, but they also have generated public use of their
data. A recent map user survey made by the State Mapping Administration of the
State of Lower Saxony LGLN in Germany has shown that authoritative geodata
customers use Google and Tomtom or HERE products in parallel with authoritative
data to check feature content and up-to-date status. They appreciate the existence of
both public and private data.
9) Google, and to a lesser extent Bingmaps, are global operators. Google relies on
the procurement of WorldView 3 or Pleiades images for updates, Bingmaps (now
under responsibility of Uber) on Vexcel digital aerial images. Google has even the
additional capability to crate local update information by the Skybox constellation of
satellites using images or videos. Likewise Tomtom and HERE are global operators,
mapping roadways in more than 190 countries.
10) But another more local initiative is the “Open Street Map”, for which map
features are compiled by local private operators as their contribution to the user
community. Naturally this effort cannot be systematic. It concentrates on a number of
regions predominantly in Europe, America, Asia and Australia, but also in Africa.
11) It looks at present, that none of these systems will be able to replace authoritative
mapping, but indeed there is a potential for private-public data exchanges for the sake
of up-to-dateness and feature content verification.
12) One of the basic advantages, but also difficulties faced by governments in their
authoritative mapping effort lies in the fact, that this mapping is the base for
operating geographic or land information systems.
In doing so, the governments not only concentrate on the production of map features,
but also on the possibility to link a wide range of attributes to the graphic features,
such as point, lines and polygons. The analysis in these data systems can be well
handled by relational data bases. One of the leading global GIS suppliers is ESRI
with ArcGIS.
13) But if the maintenance of the geographic or land information system also
requires changes in the feature geometry (new points, new lines, and new polygons)
then the modification of relational data bases may become cumbersome, even though
FME tools are available to permit a certain amount of object orientation for the data
in the relational database, e.g. ArcGIS.
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Such object oriented databases are advisable, if their features, such as buildings,
parcels or roads need frequent updates, or if the updates are made by very different
measurement tools.
The Ordnance Survey uses Oracle Spatial to maintain the object oriented data base
for the topographic features at the 1:1200 scale. In the German Survey
Administration the operation of a cadastral registration system ALKIS requires object
orientation at the 1:1000 scale. But also the topographic database at the 1:5000 scale
range level is modelled via UML in object orientation. These are highly sophisticated
developments. Their definition and software effort required more than a decade to
lead to implementation.
Countries, which do not have the monetary or the intellectual resources to introduce
such systems for fast updating will achieve a faster and more effective topographic
update possibility with ArcGIS with FME modifications, even if this may be less
stringent.
On the other hand it is quite interesting, that GEO Star, a dual use object oriented and
relational database has been developed in China.
14) There is rich material available in academic dissertations and publications on
geodatabase modelling, but an international discussion of these issues and their
importance has been greatly non-existent, even though it plays a role in solving the
problem of updating map objects, rather than replacing map content patch by patch.
Even Google has not offered an opinion on how to update their databases in public.
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